'Universities serve to make students think: to resolve problems by argument supported by evidence; not to be dismayed by complexity, but bold in unravelling it'.  (What are universities for? by Geoffrey Boulton and Colin Lucas).   This course takes up this challenge by offering latter year students from any part of the ANU the opportunity to explore a series of complex issues. The connections between economic, historical, social, legal, scientific, engineering and environmental and moral dimensions of complex problems will be explored.    

The course will examine the behaviour of complex problems.  Case studies will include the collapse of empires, contemporary development, health and environmental issues, engineering and network failures and the moral and legal dimensions of all these issues.  

The course will encourage students to share their existing disciplinary perspectives to develop deep understandings of how to go about effective team based approaches to unravelling complex issues.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion, students will have the knowledge and skills to:

• Identify and generalise archetypical behaviours in complex problems
• Provide and situate disciplinary perspectives and methodologies in an interdisciplinary team
• Analyse and construct arguments from multiple perspectives, supported by evidence and with intellectual independence
• Reflect critically on theory from the course by connecting personal experiences and/or real-world situations
• Design, research and defend a learning portfolio unravelling a complex problem